If you look at any point in history, the single biggest oppressor of freedom for the average person has almost invariably been the government that rules over one's country.  There's no shortage of greed in corporate America, but at least a corporation generally can't send the army in to take away your freedoms.  Look at the censorship in Europe right now, this is what big government is going to give you: they will gladly take all of the control you give them but I promise you that when the time comes for you to ask for your freedom back you'll have nothing to talk to but riot police and internet cops.  Americans need to spend some time talking to middle-aged Russians and understand why government is not something to be trusted or relied on.  You're feeding this beast (government) and making it more and more powerful to fight your enemy (corporate America) but you fail to realize that you're creating something far scarier and you're convinced that this monster is your friend and that it's always going to be on your side...

There is nothing wrong with government as such. It is legitimate and it can be a sheild against corruption.  Government itself isn't an our enemy. It is the people who have been asked to facilitate it that are cause so much pain. Corporations and large enterprises have bought their way into the ranks of our governing bodies.  The greed is beyond belief.  And so much effort has been spent taking and taking until a small percentage can have such a disproportionate wealth advantage and hard working people can struggle.  Government cannot work when there is a far more dangerous underlying issue. Its the Monetary system.  It has been manipulated to hell.

Edited post.  You and I can at least agree about the greed.

European states are primarily social democracies (not socialist.) They embrace market economies and the private ownership of the means of production (mostly) something any socialist will tell you disqualifies a person (group of people) from being socialists. 

I have a concern of how European states deal with things like freedom of speech in particular. I hear way too often censorship happening in EU states, and it is something that would be greatly pushed against here in the U.S. Besides that, the freedoms are quite similar in Europe from what I can tell. 

I am against the welfare state and warfare state by the way. I am against them for the same reasons (and differeing ones.) They take GDP out of the hands of efficient spenders and put it into the hands of inefficient spenders (government.) They also allow for massive amounts of debt (19 trillion currently.)

Private charities have existed in the past, and in only the most extreme cases (Great Depression) was government required to supplement them. I think private charities can certainly return (hell, in the U.S there is as much private "welfare" spending as public right now.) As for the military, if it were relegated to only defensive measures then tons of money and resources would be saved. Overall the country and the economy would be much more prosperous for it. 

The man is just spreading pure propaganda ...

When you put politics into money/markets/businesses, don't be surprised when there is money/businesses in politics. It is the same principle behind the separation of the church and state. We need the separation of markets and the state if we truly want the rich and powerful out of politics. But then that would mean we have to neuter the power of the state to bare necessity levels, which most people don't seem to want. What do you expect, the rich to just roll over and get screwed by the "majority" through mob-rule? 

"Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something."

That is because Bernie calls it "Democratic Socialism" which is actually socialism, and something entirely different from "Social Democracy." Furthermore, historically Bernie was a real socialist whose end goals were indeed the public ownership of the means of production. This was true until the fall of the Soviet Union, in which he changed his views a little bit. Now he has just tempered his policies to Social Democratic ones because he is trying to be pragmatic in the context of the American system. Democratic Socialism is what is present in Venezuela, and it has the same faults as Soviet-style top-down socialism. 

Furthermore, like Trump - Bernie never says how he is going to do the things he claims he'll do. His promises are just like Trump's - empty. 

There is something wrong when Bernie Sanders cites the large welfare states of Nordic countries, but ignores the free-market principles these countries espouse much more deeply than the U.S. There is even more wrong when he (like Trump) espouses protectionism. You can't represent a Nordic country as the model of what the U.S should be, and then at the same time ignore all the ways their economies are more  capitalistic/laissez-faire than the U.S'. 

Everyone sells something but he's selling misinformation and promoting Bernie Sanders ...

Therein lies the issue.  Government is trapped inside of the same system as we are.  Money rules everything and there are those who thrive because of it and many more who do not.  The power that it has over our society comes from the emphiasis it has over us.  So, we would need to change ourselves in order to change the brokeness of government. What you are proposing seems nearly impossible. I don't have a solution for this that doesn't consist of a large mob.  Can you think of a solution?